The US Justice Department on Tuesday released special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the final work of the prosecutor whose landmark criminal cases were thwarted by Trump’s November election victory.
The report is expected to detail Smith’s decision to bring a four-count indictment against Trump, accusing the Republican of conspiring to obstruct the collection and certification of votes following his 2020 defeat by Democratic President-elect Joe Biden. Has been accused of.
The second section of the report details Smith’s case, which accuses Trump of illegally retaining sensitive national security documents after leaving the White House in 2021. The Justice Department has committed not to make that portion public while legal proceedings continue against two Trump associates charged in the case.
Smith, who left the Justice Department last week, dropped both cases against Trump after he won the election last year, citing the Justice Department’s long-standing policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. None reached trial.
Trump pleaded innocent to all charges. Regularly attacking Smith as “insane”, Trump portrayed these affairs as politically motivated attempts to damage his campaign and political movement.
Trump and his two former co-defendants in the classified documents case sought to block the release of the report, days before Trump returned to office on January 20. The courts rejected their demands to stop its publication altogether.
U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon, who is presiding over the documents case, has ordered the Justice Department to halt plans to allow some senior members of Congress to privately review sections of the report.
It’s unclear how much new information the public portion of the report will contain.
Prosecutors detailed their case against Trump in previous court filings. In 2022, a congressional panel published its 700-page account of Trump’s actions after the 2020 election.
Both investigations concluded that Trump spread false claims of widespread voter fraud after the 2020 election, pressured state lawmakers not to certify the vote, and ultimately disinherited electors in those states who promised to vote for Trump. Tried to use fake groups to show who was actually won by Biden. To prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.
This effort culminated in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed Congress in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent lawmakers from certifying the vote.
Smith’s case faced legal hurdles even before Trump’s election victory. It was stalled for months while Trump stuck to his claim that he could not be prosecuted for official actions taken as president.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority largely sided with him, giving former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
